I joined an audience of two when I walked into a jazz club yesterday.
The band included one of Kansas City's most respected elder statesman and one of region's most notable young lions. To paraphrase the pop song of the summer, their astounding talents should have the musicians "in the fast lane from L.A. to Tokyo." Instead, the number of listeners had only grown to six when I left the club an hour later.
While updating The Kansas City Jazz Calendar I found that a remarkable amount of non-jazz acts were booked at jazz venues in August. It's difficult to begrudge venue managers of the shift when jazz acts aren't consistently drawing crowds.
It's one thing to tout Kansas City's jazz heritage. It's quite another to support the present artistic renaissance by actually attending gigs. And yes, I'm as culpable as many purported jazz fans. I left the forsaken jazz club to join a throng of thousands at a funk concert.
(Original image by Plastic Sax.)
4 comments:
I was at The Phoenix about the same time, maybe a little earlier, with a couple of friends. The club was about half filled for Tim Whitmer & KC Express with Lori Tucker, with more people straming in when we left. That's something The Phoenix has done well: Between Lonnie McFadden on Friday evenings and Tim on Saturdays, they have found a couple of popular and fun acts who have built a buzz and make people think of The Phoenix when conisdering where to get some drinks downtown on a weekend evening, I don't know which other muscians could build a similar buzz at other clubs, but it''s something Green Lady could use and Broadway Jazz Club needs.
The Green Lady is still 100% jazz 7 nights a week. And last Friday was a record-setting night for them as far as sales go. There was no room to move. Just saying.
Thanks for your rejoinder, Chris. And I'm thrilled to hear the report about Friday night.
I wasn't meaning to be rude. Just presenting a counter to your view of "forsaken jazz club".
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